Issue: January 2012
Letter from the Publisher
Welcome to the new and updated version of The Angelus....
Vatican II: A Debate That Has Not Taken Place
Msgr. Brunero Gherardini does not content himself with deploring the fact that the debate on the Second Vatican Council has not taken place, but even goes so far as to show why it would be more indispensable than ever today.
The Three Modernist Musketeers
It is impossible to speak of the genesis of the Second Vatican Council without mentioning the leading figures of the whole movement: Henri de Lubac, Yves Congar, and Karl Rahner.
A History Never Written
The Second Vatican Council: A History Never Written is...a monument that is obviously the result of an immense labor and destined to take a place beside the few other irreplaceable books on the Council like The Rhine Flows into the Tiber by Fr. Ralph Wiltgen and The History of Vatican II by Giuseppe Alberigo
The History of the Preparatory Schemas
For over two years, Cardinals and religious superiors met to produce what was meant to be the blueprint of the Council texts. We wish to examine this history...as to the content, the conflict, and finally the dismissal of these pre-conciliar texts.
Mary, Mediatrix of All Graces
What is meant by the mediation of Mary?
The Primacy of the Liturgy
The primacy of the Liturgy in the life of the Church, and thus in the life of all Catholics.
An Introduction to Catholic Social Doctrine
Christ’s Kingship over the universe does not refer merely to the end times...
Acts of the Magisterium: On the Constitution of the Church
A Schema from the First Vatican Council...
BOOK REVIEW: The Rhine Flows into the Tiber
by Ralph Wiltgen When it comes to Vatican II, we need not indulge in the mystifying ‘spirit’ of the Council, nor even thumb through Sheed’s Is It the Same Church? To get the...
St. Francis de Sales: Patron and Hero of Journalists
Highlights from the life of St. Francis and how it was that a simple bishop of Geneva, who is still read and loved 400 years later, was named patron of journalists.
Selections from "Introduction to the Devout Life"
Be sure that wheresoever our lot is cast we may and must aim at the perfect life.
Archbishop Lamy: Iron Will and Profound Faith
The story of Jean Baptiste Lamy, the first archbishop of Santa Fe, New Mexico.
We Must Have Christian Hope
Selections from a Sermon of Archbishop Lefebvre
 about families and schools.
BOOK REVIEW: The True and Only Wealth of Nations
This book gives a series of essays of Louis de Bonald, illustrious member of the landed nobility of central France, both writer and statesman. He forcefully defended the Christian social order during the post-revolutionary years and the Bourbon Restoration.
Q&A
Are human-animal hybrids a possibility?
What is the origin of the expression “Mysterium fidei” found in the consecration of the Precious Blood at the traditional Mass?
Church and World
Reflections on the Presence of Atheists in Assisi
Brazil: The Supreme Court Has Authorized the First Civil Homosexual Marriage
Issues U.S. Bishops Proposed
Egypt: Cardinal Naguib Denounces the Rise of the Islamists
SiSiNoNo: Dignitatis Humanae and the Hermeneutic of Reform
To a hermeneutic of discontinuity, Pope Benedict XVI does not oppose a hermeneutic of continuity. Rather, he speaks of a “hermeneutic of reform” by which he means “an ensemble of continuity and discontinuity at various levels.” Consequently, the real key to a reading of the Council “in the light of Tradition” consists in distinguishing continuity and discontinuity, discerning the different levels at which each is situated.
The Last Word
An old Roman proverb from Cicero is variatio delectat : there’s nothing like change! For the first time, the Districts of the United States and Canada are creating a single team. Both sides...